


Skin Deep

by JonathansNightFlight



Series: Thirty flavours of falling with you [4]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), References to Drugs, Slight Mentions of Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 19:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12239460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonathansNightFlight/pseuds/JonathansNightFlight
Summary: Two weeks post-fall, Hannibal has to let Will see the Verger brand on his skin for the very first time.





	Skin Deep

It was barely noon, and it had not been a great day. Will reached for the bedside table and swore at the sharp ache. Judging from the sharpness of the pain and the clarity of his thoughts, Will concluded that Hannibal had decided to wane him off the opiates. Will swore again, to the empty room. He couldn’t decide which one he minded more, the pain or the clarity.

Hannibal chose that very moment to slowly limb his way by the open door. Will swore once more, begrudgingly, and Hannibal slowed down further, to flash him a cordial smile.

Lunch time was just as miserable as Will could expect. The smell and sight of food made his stomach clench, and even though he could rationalise that the thick, smooth broth was helping him heal, Will could not convince himself to swallow down more than a few spoonfuls.

Hannibal took pity on him after a few long minutes of scowling, and replaced the plate in front of him with a thick slice of bread.

Will let his forehead fall on the table, with a soul-deep sigh. He stared at the bread, as if the carb-loaded slice was singularly responsible for the sequence of events that led him mangled to bits, stashed away in a luxurious hunting cabin close to Vermont. With Hannibal.

“Just kill me”, he groaned to Hannibal.

“Would be far too easy, I am afraid”, came the reply. Will lifted his head - and immediately regretted it; the lilting tone was a touch clipped.

“Taking the both of us off the good stuff, at the same time?” A pause, “dare I question the wisdom of this decision?”

“Correct, it leaves us both somewhat incapacitated”, the words coming tight but perfectly enunciated, “but since we’ll need to move soon, this seemed to be the safest option”.

Will groaned “How soon is soon?” He could barely handle the weight of his clothes against his back at his current state - long days of interstate driving was entirely out of question.

“Not to worry Will, I shall not plan for anything you cannot handle”.

A pause, and Will had to swallow down something inky and slimy and bitter.

“You didn’t meant this”, he said instead.

“No, I did not.”

A standstill.

Will let his head rest on the cool wood of the table once again.

Hannibal moved around him, clearing up the table and stacking dishes. A few moments later, he came to a stop behind Will. He touched a cool hand on the back of his neck and run fingers through hair, tentative.

“You probably don’t want my medical opinion right now, but if I might advice you as a friend - your shoulder would not appreciate you falling asleep on the table, Will”.

Will cussed something vague. He took Hannibal’s offered arm and then -

“How are you going to change your wound’s dressing?”

Hannibal paused mid-step, and if anything, Hannibal reacting so blatantly to being caught out told Will all he needed to know about his physical state.

“Ok”, a hand against his eyes, coaxing himself, pressing against the spikes of static and pain, ”So here is what we will do. We’ll clean and dress your wound and then sleep this fucking hell off”. A pause, and Will had to force his eyes open to stare Hannibal down, until he nodded.

“Good, bathroom.”

Hannibal took them to their shared bathroom and unfolded a little parcel of creams and bandages and tiny crooked scissors. He placed them on the closed toilet lid, and stilled. Will sighed.

“Just…” Will made some abstract hand movements that pained him so he stopped, but not before catching an amused glimpse in Hannibal’s eyes, “just get your shirt off and talk me through it.”

If he wasn’t already as annoyed as he could physical afford being, Will would sneer at Hannibal’s stalwarting.

But then something in Hannibal deflated, and hunching next to the bathtub he begun undoing his buttons.

“I am putting you in a sweater” Will threatened as he washed his hands with anticeptic, “without even an undershirt”.

His joke landed flat, unexpectedly flat, and he turned to glare at Hannibal and he froze.

Hannibal was sat on the bathtub’s edge, facing the wall. His back was exposed apart from a sagging coil of bandages and - Will blinked fast - a puckered, knotted expanse of scar tissue covering the best part of his upper back.

Will made himself look. “May I?”

Hannibal nodded stiffly.

Will traced the large V in the very center, the few letters he could read around the edges, the stocky likeness of a boar-head on the top. Gently, he picked and pulled and prodded at the skin. And then he leaned in and kissed the left corner, where the skin had knotted upon itself, making the pattern indecipherable.

He stayed there for a few breathes, and then he whispered “Talk me through it”.

And Hannibal guided him through the wound-care steps in a clipped and clinical voice.

Once the last bandage was secured in place, Hannibal stopped talking. It seemed to Will that he was content to sit on the edge of the bathtub facing the wall until the earth was consumed by the sun.

“Right. I am going to bring you a sweater”, Will declared. He was already perusing their spartan closet, a few feet’s walk away, when he thought of asking “Any preferences?”

The response came a moment later, “Soft”.

Will brought back a cadmium red misshapen thing, more blanket than cloth. He helped Hannibal into it. And then didn’t quite let go, until they were both half-leaning against the bathtub, Hannibal’s hands resting at his sides, Will’s buried in the red thick sweater.

“I hate this”, he breathed, eyes closed, voice tired.

“You will always be the person who took a bone-saw to my skull - and that’s after the encephalitis only just failed to boil the insides”. Will let fingers tighten and loosen on the fabric, causing little fireworks of pain to erupt behind his eyelids. He made himself look at Hannibal, but he was focused on Will’s hands.

“And you will always be the person who carried me through miles of snow while charred pieces of skin rubbed off him and onto the stolen jacket on his back, then proceeded to bathe, bandage, dress and tuck me in without stopping to care for said wound. The person who leaned back on my armchair, letting the puss run into his coat and congeal, to watch me sleep. And the same person who obediently got up and walked to his arrest, epidermis still flayed raw.”

Hannibal was still looking down.

“The skin, sticking to my clothes and tearing off, was not what flayed me raw that day“.

“I know“.

“I love you“.

“You are fucking exhausting, Hannibal”.

Will let his forehead rest against the sweater. His head was full of angry bees, and he was done trying to hold it up for the day, maybe for the week.

Hannibal moved marginally, raising a hand to cup Will’s head closer to him. “We should sleep then”.

Will nodded. He was vaguely aware that to an outsider it would look as though he was nuzzling Hannibal’s chest. And then the warm body against him started moving, and he let Hannibal steer him towards a bed for some well-deserved hours of oblivion.


End file.
